


Congratulations

by wholocker78218



Series: 25 Days of Christmas [24]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/M, Rare Pair, surprise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28619442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wholocker78218/pseuds/wholocker78218
Summary: After a life changing revelation, Yelina decides it's time to stop moping around and to fix her life, this is her last chance to mend the heart she broke, and she will do whatever it takes.
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Yelina Muñoz
Series: 25 Days of Christmas [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2036830
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	Congratulations

SHIP: Barba x Yelina

Request: “I love Karen Olivo and I wish we’d seen more of her, could you do a rare pair of her and Barba having an affair and him being the dad to her kids”

How did she get here? Her whole life she made decisions she regretted because she thought she was doing the right thing for her. She left Rafael because Alex was a more stable choice, she regretted choosing emotional safety over love, but it was too late – and yet here she is. Her husband in a hospital bed after getting almost stabbed to death in prison.

She had so many opportunities to back out but instead held out in the hope that _they_ were wrong, that Alex wasn’t the man they were saying he was – the kind of man to not only cheat on her repeatedly but to send disgusting messages to a child.

And then he got convicted and sent to prison and she should have left him, she tried, he wouldn’t sign the papers, he didn’t want to leave his daughters, but she didn’t really try as hard as she should. She worried their daughters would be bullied at school (when they were old enough to go) for their dad being a sexual predator, but she held on because it would stop eventually, as long as they knew she loved them and wouldn’t let them come to any harm - that would be enough.

Yelina doesn’t know why she held on; Alex hurt her more than Rafael ever could have. Loyalty maybe, the shame of having chosen the wrong man and then being too prideful to leave him when he turned out to be what he was.

Her relationship with Rafael was ruined, he gave her an out and she didn’t take it – she should have but she didn’t, and they had never spoken since.

Her marriage to Alex wasn’t smooth sailing even before the revelation of corruption and everything else she doesn’t want to think about though. She wasn’t the perfect wife – far from it but it looks like they were well matched in that regard.

The truth is, the cheating would never have made her leave him because she was guilty of it too, she cheated on Alex on three occasions. That was the first sign she wasn’t meant to be with Alex, the second she should have realised sooner but she didn’t want her marriage to be a failure, so she ignored the signs.

But she can’t ignore them anymore, because when Alex wakes up his doctor will tell him the same thing she told her. Alex was infertile, had been his entire life. Up until that revelation, Alex had three daughters: not anymore.

When the doctor told her, Yelina had half a mind to beg her not to tell him, but then she realised this was her final chance. To right all the wrongs, she made in her life.

She isn’t naïve enough to think he’d immediately take her back, but _he_ is the kind of man who wouldn’t ignore the fact he suddenly has three children he never knew was his. Because when she cheated on Alex it was with the same man every time, the man she should have chosen but was too scared to.

The father of her children is not a paedophile or sexual predator. The father of her children is Rafael Barba and if this is her final chance, she’s going to take it, she won't make the same mistake again.

\--

It takes her a while to track him down. Since he left the DA’s office, he isn’t in New York often but after convincing Eddie that she desperately needs to see him, he eventually gives her Rafael’s new address, with the promises that if anything happens to Rafael, he will testify in front of a judge that she was the last one to see him.

It takes her another two days to actually go to see him, she plans to go in the afternoon, getting her mother to look after the girls overnight, whether this goes well or not, she won’t be able to answer their questions if she comes back crying. This is her last chance, and she needs to make it count.

\--

When he opens the door, he looks shocked to see her, she hasn’t spoken to him since the gala where he gave Alex a choice on what he should do. They stand staring at each other, the silence between them deafening.

“What are you doing here?” He finally asks, folding his arms across his chest in a defensive gesture she remembers from their time as teenagers, whenever he felt threatened, he’d fold his arms. As he got older, he trained himself out of it, convinced himself it was a weakness others would notice and exploit. To see him doing it again, in response to her, hurts her more than she would like to admit.

“Can’t I visit an old friend?” She knows immediately that was the wrong thing to say, his face locks down, emotions checking out.

“Last time we spoke you made it very clear how you felt about me.”

“You know me, Rafael, you know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important,” she tries to reason, unable to come up with any other response to that.

“I thought I did…” he mumbles but moves to let her in.

Yelina isn’t sure what she expects his apartment to look like but it’s practically bare, the only furniture is functional although still comfortable-looking; everything is either very light or very dark, almost no colour and no decoration other than practical essentials.

She drops her bag on the coffee table, turning to face him, he’s holding his stance, arms folded, eyes locked on her, she heard the lock on the door flick, it’s clear to her he’s feeling threatened.

“I only came to talk, nothing else, if you want me to leave I will,” she tells him honestly, he must believe her as his shoulders relax but his arms remain folded.

“I thought we’d had our last conversation, you and Alex tried to ruin me for doing my job, forgive me for being surprised by you turning up at my door years later,” she turns her eyes away in shame, but forces herself to look at him, she can’t walk away this time.

“I chose Alex over you when we were teenagers because I thought that if one of you were to hurt me it would be you, and I didn’t want to have my heart broken by someone I cared so much about.”

“That worked out well for you,” she glares at him for that, but he merely raises his eyebrows in response, he wasn’t wrong, but it didn’t feel great to hear it.

“What happened with those girls wasn’t the first problem in our marriage, you _know_ that we had our troubles,” she gives him a meaningful look and he drops his gaze for a second before meeting hers again. “That’s the real reason why I’m here, but I'm also here to apologise. I should have left him, but I was so sure it wasn’t true, I knew he cheated but I couldn’t exactly judge him for that, could I?” She asks not expecting an answer, but he opens his mouth as if to say something before closing it again, so she continues.

“But I didn’t know about the girl, I couldn’t bring myself to believe that the man I married would do the things he did. So, I stayed and then he got sent to prison and I asked him for a divorce, but he wouldn’t give me one.”

Rafael raises his eyebrows at that, Alex went to prison years ago but as far as he knew they were still married.

“You could have made him, there are laws in place that would have given you the divorce if you’d applied for help, is that why you’re here, to ask for my help?”

“No, I’ve got it sorted mostly, there’s just one thing he doesn’t know yet, that’s what I came here to tell you.” Yelina takes a deep breath. “Before everything with the investigation, we were… _involved_ , on multiple occasions. Alex doesn’t know but he will, not who I was with, but he will know there was a man or men.”

“If you’ve come to warn me about him sending people after me it won’t be the first time I’ve received threats,” that she knew, it was on the news that he had been threatened, Alex had cheered when he had found out, telling her that Rafael deserved it for what he had done.

“He doesn’t know that we had sex… A few days ago, he got stabbed in prison, while they were operating on him, the doctor noticed something and told me, something they are going to tell Alex whether I like it or not.”

“You’re talking in circles, just tell me why you are really here, what’s wrong?”

“Alex is infertile, he always has been.”

Rafael is silent. Minutes pass and he says nothing, she can hear the city outside, but the room is deafeningly quiet. After what feels like an age, he speaks.

“Was there anyone else?” She shakes her head in the negative, he releases a breath and heads to the kitchen returning with a tumbler of scotch.

He sits down heavily on the couch, his elbows on his knees, taking a long drink, shaking his head as the scotch burns down his throat. She sits down as well, near enough to see the tension in his shoulders and arms but not touching him, it’s clear he needs a little bit of space.

After a few more minutes of silence and an empty glass, he lifts his head to look at her.

“What do you want from me, Yelina?” His voice is tired and the softest she’s heard it in years, the fight has gone from him.

“I don’t want my children to have a paedophile for a father,” he laughs dryly and without humour.

“They barely know who I am, I haven’t even met Sofia.”

Sofia was only two years old when Alex went to prison, Mariana and Isabel were three and four respectively. The older two girls knew Rafael was a family friend but barely knew him as his job kept him busy, something Alex took a slight in. Believing Rafael was embarrassed to be seen with them while he lived the high life with the ‘posh bastards’.

“They’re your daughters, you are a far better man than he is, I’m not asking you to come play happy families with me, I just,” she pauses, that’s exactly what she wants, but she doesn’t want to scare him off, she knows there was once a part of him that loved her, she hoped it was still there, but she would take what she could get if he stayed in her and her daughters’ lives. “They need a decent father figure, and I can’t think of anyone better than their biological father.”

“If Alex hadn’t done what he did, and you found out he wasn’t the father of your children, would you still have told me?”

He turns his face to look at her and she has no idea how to answer that, she doesn’t know what she would have done. She still doesn't know how Alex will react to the news.

“I don’t know what I would’ve done, but I cheated on Alex before the investigation before he ran for mayor, our relationship wasn’t as stable as the world thinks. I’d like to think I would have told you, but I just don’t know,” That’s the only answer she can give him.

He seems to appreciate her honesty. They lapse into silence; she can see his mind working furiously as he processes everything she’s told him.

“After you, I never thought I’d have children,” he turns again to face her and she knows the part of him that loved her is still alive and kicking, even if he doesn’t know it or if he doesn’t want to acknowledge it. He wouldn’t have told her that if he had completely moved on.

She decides to take a chance, placing a hand on the inside of his forearm, his rolled-up sleeves allowing her to touch his heated skin, lightly closing her fingers around part of his wrist, two fingers over the pulse point. He looks down at the touch, unaware her move allowed her to feel his heart rate rise enough to be noticeable, and the fact she still has this effect on him fills her with something she isn’t sure she should put a name to at this stage. He moves his arm, and she panics internally, thinking he is about to shrug her off but instead he takes her hand in his, fingers intertwining with her own and she relaxes, enjoying the gentle touch.

“Merry Christmas Rafael, you’re a dad,” he mumbles under his breath and she squeezes his hand.


End file.
